The US "fabricated evidence" against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic during clashes between Serbia and Bosnia in the mid-1990s, according to a prominent and experienced international peacekeeping official who served there.

Retired Swedish Brigadier General Bo Pellnas, who was head of UN Military Observers (UNMOs) in Croatia, now says that the US should not be trusted. Pellnas says that he learned to distrust US-provided evidence during peacekeeping service in the former Yugoslavia.

Pellnas's misgivings are described in an article from the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet. Here is an English-language translation of this article:

In an interview with Sweden's leading news-wire TT, retired Brigadier Bo Pellnas claims that the US "faked evidence to suit their own interests."

"If the US were to present evidence of Iraqs weapons of mass destruction, the countries of the Western world would have no way to substantiate these reports due to the technical superiority of the US."

These are the words of retired Brigadier Bo Pellnas, who says he witnessed the US "fabricating fact to suit their own needs." Pellnas says he witnessed this first-hand when he led an international force which safeguarded the borders between Serbia and Bosnia in the mid-1990s, where he gained a very good insight and understanding of US operations. "The technical superiority of the US gives their politicians the option of bringing forth fake evidence, in this case in front of the United Nations Security Council."

Pellnas served in Yugoslavia during a time when US efforts, led by then Secretary of State Madeline Albright, presented evidence to the UN Security Council that Milosevic's Belgrade government ran unmonitored arms shipments. Pellnas claims that Albright's staff presented manipulated satellite photos to document false allegations, leading the Security Council to act in accordance with the US hard line against Milosevic.

"There might be a possibility that Albright thought the pictures to be true," says Pellnas, "but several incidents pointed towards the fact that the US lied." The US stood firm by their claims, refusing to show supporting evidence to Pellnas and other members of the peacekeeping crew.

"If the US were to come forth with evidence against Iraq which were "difficult to confirm," the permanent members of the Council will be put in a difficult situation, since they lack the sufficient tools to research and verify such claims."

Pellnas said he hopes that nations of the European Union make it their responsibility to build their own intelligence agency which has the capability to act as a counterbalance to the US. "It would be great indeed if the EU could act as a balance to the world's only true superpower, which acts alone these days."

In addition to his UN duties, Pellnas was also in charge of an international monitoring mission to Yugoslavia in 1994 sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and worked with the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia (ICFY), a group established in 1991 to find a peaceful solution to the region's conflicts.

The Swedes have such a superiority in Swedish that no one can know if what they say is true or false. Hopefully the European Union will develop enough facility in that language to make it capable of evaluating what an obscure Swedish brigadier spinmeister is saying.

I don't find credility to be either a rightie or a leftie thing. Years of crap being fed to us by CNN is now being matched bucket for bucket by crap being fed to us by Fox.

I'm also not opposed to a balance of power and neither were our founding fathers. One of the great successes of the US is our balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary branches.

Are we supposed to be impressed with a general from a neutral country?

What's neutrality got to do with competence or honesty? The Swedes, along with the Swiss, have long been neutral, (less time for the Swedes, IIRC). But being neutral doesn't mean they are pacifists. Both have universal military service, with large reserve establishments, and the Swedes equipment is technally on a par with that produced by Germany, Britain and France, better in some areas. The Swiss Militia system served as model for that of the United States during the early years of our Republic. They've kept theirs up, we haven't. They send a full auto assault home with every reservist, and virtually every male is a reservist. (Officer and NCOs only get pistols IIRC, although they are free to buy their own AR if they want)

Ah, the Swedes and the Swiss -- the two nations who sat back and got wealthy during WWII by supplying the Nazis with what they needed to fight (iron, money, etc.). Neutrality is another word for vulture.

I'd believe Barney Frank or Jim Jeffords before I'd believe a politician or bureaucrat from a socialist country.

But they are from a socialist country. Everytime time the government props up a company like Chrysler with money to keep it running and its labor force employeed or anytime someone needs to go on unemployment to provide food and shelter for their family because the economy took a nose dive and there were lay-offs involved, socialism is involved.

No country is either 100% socialist or 100% freemarket. It's a question of degree.

Again, credibility isn't a rightie or a leftie thing. In my exerience, you are just as likely to find people of equal degrees of credibilty no matter what side of the fence they come down on. I know just as many people of integrity on the left as I do on the right and the same is true with regards to a lack of integrity.

This bastard is smearing President GWB using clintons actions in Yoguslavia. Mr. pellnas is a typical european, who are very liberal in twisting the truth to suit his agenda of accusing the Bush Administration of what he is doing.

As nearly as I can tell, the Serbs are the closest thing there are to normal decent people in the Balkans

Actually, I take issue with this line. Every ethnic group in the Balkans has its share of normal decent people and every group has its fair share of homicidal lunatics. I used to believe that the Serbs had a history that they deserved to be more proud of than any of the other peoples, unfortunately they failed to take the high road too often in Krajina, Bosnia and Kosovo and managed to spill their share of innocent blood. Now their name is forever tarnished and their punishment is to have the line blurred between them and the fascist Ustashe Croats and Nazi-alligned Albanians of Kosovo.

This isn't to say that I don't still believe in their cause and believe that they are the area's main victims in the arena of global politics. I believe the main instigator of much of the violence of the past 13 years to be outside influences. These include; the exiled Ustashe diaspora and its PR firms and lobby groups, pre-mature German and Vatican recognition (I suppose that team had such a good time together in the Balkans during WW2 they decided to give it another rub), Saudi arm twisting of the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations so they'd buy our jet fighters from us, the IMF calling in its loans and forcing heavy handed and crippling economic reforms, and a bunch of other moves that I can't think of off the top of my head.

I'm not going to come out and use "they made us do it" as a weak excuse, but if you keep throwing gasoline on an already smoldering and volitile situation, nobody should be surprised if a fire speads from the stove top to the kitchen and once the kitchen is in flames, good luck trying to keep the rest of the house from burning too.

For some of us, we were aware of those fabrications from the get-go. What could we have done besides dispute int in Public Debates at various educational institutions when the Muslims brought in "their" bought and paid for speakers who lie- i.e Martin Sugarman.

Espcecially those "3 Mass Graves" Maddie was displaying around the world. Less than a week upon her brazen lies, my "reliable" sources confirmed what those graves were- graves for the Serb military dead, muslim military dead and civilians. Just my sources from within certain places provided that information. Of course, Hoplitese will call in and say "pictures do not lie" etc... Much like Racak, the "Breadline Massacre" and such.

I do agree that the US fabricated evidence in Racak and the whole "Operation Horseshoe" was proven to be false. But this story is made up and full of crap. Either someone's translation software is broke or a bunch of monkeys typed this. Pellnas claims that Albright's staff presented manipulated satellite photos to document false allegations, leading the Security Council to act in accordance with the US hard line against Milosevic. When did the Security Council act? If we are talking about in Bosnia, Albright was sworn in as Secretary of State on January 23, 1997, so that's wrong. If we are talking about Kosovo, the Security Council never acted. My BS meter is off the scale.

In August 1995, during a Security Council meeting, the US delegation to the United Nations accused the leadership of the Bosnian Serbs of having committed wide-scale atrocities against Muslim civilians. With what amounts to a satellite photo "peep show," Madeleine Albright had an excuse already prepared for the lack of evidence to support her charges. The NY Times in referring back to that session of the UN Security Council wrote:

"On Aug. 10, [1995] the chief United States delegate to the United Nations, Madeleine K. Albright, showed selected photos of the two sites to a closed session of the United Nations Security Council. She then said, 'We will keep watching to see if the Bosnian Serbs try to erase the evidence of what they have done.'" One of the earlier versions was the vanishing corpses through a corrosive agent. In the same article, the NY Times adds:

"American officials said today that they suspect Bosnian Serb soldiers may have tried to destroy evidence that they killed thousands of Muslim men seized in and around the town of Srebrenica in July. The Serbs are suspected of pouring corrosive chemicals on the bodies and scattering corpses that had been buried in mass graves, the officials said. The suspicions first arose in early August, after Central Intelligence Agency experts analyzed pictures of the area taken in July by reconnaissance satellites and U-2 planes." With the absence of traces of a corrosive substance, when it comes time to dig up the "evidence," the entire legend falls flat. Another explanation had to be found: the bodies were simply dug up and moved someplace else. This excuse has its advantages: With the needle in the haystack search for "mass graves," the tribunal could keep the public at bay for quite a while. But also disadvantages: How do you remove thousands of buried, decomposing bodies without being seen by the "watchful eye" of Madeleine Albright's satellites? Undismayed by this factual detail, the Tribunal and media continue their course...

It was on the basis of these photos that the Security Council and tribunal accused the Serbian leadership of having committed a massacre. The Tribunal's indictments against Karadzic and Mladic were primarily based on faith in the journalists' faith in the Security Council's faith in the CIA and its spy photos. Neither the press nor the tribunal were given access to all of the photos, yet both take it for granted that the Bosnian leaders are "guilty as charged."

But once the indictment handed down, the Bosnian Serb leaders shut out of negotiations and the Serbian President Milosevic under effective threat (that he too could suffer the fate of his Bosnian Serb Brethren), the Clinton Administration showed little interest in helping "further the cause of justice."

Nonetheless, farmerbrown has a seriously accurate picture of the entire scenario as it happened, rabbit-breeding and all. If it were to happen this way in southern California, Americans too might be tempted to cross lines and behave in unkind ways.

And the Utashe are not even comparable to any behavior on the part of Serbs. To suggest this is outrageous. The Utashe horrified the Nazis with their cruelty, and stand alone in history, imo, as the most evil of all parties anywhere.

Nonetheless, farmerbrown has a seriously accurate picture of the entire scenario as it happened, rabbit-breeding and all. If it were to happen this way in southern California, Americans too might be tempted to cross lines and behave in unkind ways.

They (so californians) might have to. The UN MIGHT ultimately demand that we hand California over to Mexico, as farmerbrown notes. The logic is identical. We've got to give Kosovo back to Serbia; the precedent cannot be allowed to stand.

Let's see - Rade Markovic stated that he would be cut a deal if he turned on Milosevic and testified for the prosecution, Milosevic's defenders decided that plea bargaining was a form of torture, and now here you are repeating that claim.

Nonetheless, farmerbrown has a seriously accurate picture of the entire scenario as it happened, rabbit-breeding and all. If it were to happen this way in southern California, Americans too might be tempted to cross lines and behave in unkind ways.

Right on. No doubt about it.

And the Utashe are not even comparable to any behavior on the part of Serbs.

Well, the ethnic cleansing by the Serbs did happen. Just because all three sides did it to each other in Bosnia doesn't make it okay that the Serbs did it. This corresponds directly to a third of the Ustashe's "final solution" for the Serbs of expel one third, convert one third to Catholicism and kill one third. Granted the orders to commit attrocities and massacres didn't come from the top as it did during the WW2 Ustashe regime, but enough paramilitary groups and spontaneous Serbian militias committed enough nastiness to muddy the Serbs' name. I've talked to several of the Serbs that took part in these crimes and a deep sense of remorse can be felt in their presence as well as a lack of life in their eyes. I'm certain that they're going to have to carry that burden the rest of their lives.

The Utashe horrified the Nazis with their cruelty, and stand alone in history, imo, as the most evil of all parties anywhere.

I whole heartedly agree. They placed 18 members of my family in a Serbian church in Krajina during WW2 and burned the church to the ground killing all of them.

"As nearly as I can tell, the Serbs are the closest thing there are to normal decent people in the Balkans."

There are plenty of normal, decent people in the Balkansmany of them are Serbs and many of them are something else. Generalizations based on race or ethnicity are either naïve stereotyping at best or blatant racism at worst.

"In fact the Serbs declared war on Hitler and held him for many months and sent him into Russia in the dead of winter instead of on schedule, but for which we might all be working in a Nazi coal mine in West Virginia."

Sorry, I cannot let this go by. The Yugoslav Army collapsed in just a few days when Hitlers army invaded, at a cost of about 150 German dead. That was in April of 1941. The Germans attacked the Soviet Union in June. The timing for the attack was based primarily on the ebbing of the Eastern European rivers after the spring thaw, which came late that year. You can make the case that Yugo partisans tied down a considerable amount of German combat power later in the war, but Yugo resistance, or lack thereof, in 1941 had no impact on the German attack of Russia. And do you really think all of us could fit into that coal mine in West Virginia?

"In fact, the Serbs rescued something like 500 allied airmen who were downed coming back from the raids over Ploesti and other balkan targets. Any allied airman who ever parachuted into Croatia, Albania, or any of the other parts of the Balkans was tortured and killed."

The Serbs can be proud of their resistance against the Nazis, to include the rescue and return of numerous Allied airmen. The Croats have little to brag about in this regard. However, the Albanian partisans, both Hoxhas communists and the Balli Kombetar nationalists, fighting against first the Italians and then the Germans, rescued dozens and dozens of allied airmen and returned many of them across the Adriatic to allied forces in Italy.

"These people average ten or twelve children per family, and attempt to ensconce themselves into little corners of other peoples' countries and breed for fifteen or twenty years until they constitute a majority population in those corners, and then break those corners off into their "greater Albania"."

Exactly where is this greater Albania? Of what little corners of other peoples countries is it comprised? Who is running it? And yes, "these people" have high birth rates, but that is consistent with populations from poverty-stricken rural areasthe Serbian women in Kosovo had the highest birth-rates among the Slavic peoples in the former Yugoslavia. And do they really breed in order to develop a majority population? This sounds like one of those old KKK tracts warning the white folks to watch out for those fast-breedin, no-counts of a different color.

Farmer Brown, You are on target with your comments on the Kosovo intervention by the US/NATO, but youd be even more persuasive if you just left out the historical revisionism and racial nonsense.

My greatgrandfather of Sid,Serbia hid in a tree for 3 days from the Hungarians and Germans before he fell. He caught pnuemonia and died as it was raining the entire time- they shot him. An old man held out in a tree, during a rainstorm. The Nazis wanted him for an unknown reason, he went out on his terms, not theirs. That side of my family (with a differant family name)has a proud, traditionally proud Hajduk history. Darn proud of their Adventurious past!

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